We like to think our devices are safe, but sometimes that can’t be farther from the truth. That seems to be the case of Samsung devices running on the company’s open-source operating system Tizen, which a researcher discovered to be ridden with 40 previously unknown vulnerabilities.
This pretty much means that Tizen is a hacker’s dream come true. All these zero-days discovered by Israeli researcher Amihai Neiderman could allow attackers to remotely hack millions of newer Samsung smart TVs, smart watches, and even mobile phones that are currently on the market, as well as some that are scheduled to be released. They wouldn’t even need physical access to them.
With as much noise as the WikiLeaks CIA data dump produced last month, especially the notes indicating that the CIA can hack Samsung smart TVs via malware installed with the help of a USB stick, the fact that these devices could be hacked from afar should be cause for deep concern.
In the past few years, Samsung has been trying to reduce its reliance on Google and Android. Tizen was its solution to the problem, installing it on about 30 million smart TVs, Samsung Gear smartwatches and some Samsung phones that are available in countries like Russia, India or Bangladesh, with more to come. What’s more, Tizen is also moving towards IoT with smart washing machines and refrigerators to run on this operating system this year.
According to the researcher, the vulnerabilities are all critical and would allow hackers to take control of the devices from afar.
Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/researcher-finds-40-zero-days-in-tizen-samsung-s-android-replacement-514572.shtml
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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